Shemar Moore Is Back in Action in Starz’s Solid Cop Drama ‘S.W.A.T. Exiles’: TV Review — SkimNews
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- Shemar Moore returns as Sergeant Daniel "Hondo" Harrelson Jr. in Starz's "S.W.A.T. Exiles," created by Jason Nig and set two years after the original CBS series wrapped its eight-season run.
- Hondo has been ousted from the LAPD following a botched raid that killed a young squad member, is divorced, and is working as a reluctant bodyguard for LA billionaire tech bros when LAPD Commander Robert Hicks (Patrick St. Esprit) recruits him to lead a new unit he soon realizes is a setup to fail.
- The new 44 Squad ("Exiles") includes social media-obsessed gun expert Sammy Bishop (Lucy Barrett), Marine veteran Malik Henderson (Adain Bradley), neurodivergent tech savant Ethan Cole (Freddy Miyares), prosthetic-leg-wearing Cassidy Han (Zyra Gorecki), and Jude Callan (Ronen Rubinstein).
- A season-long conspiracy runs through all 10 first-season episodes, with a mole inside the unit feeding information to the mayor's office to take Hondo down.
- Episode 4, "Get Clear," breaks from the procedural formula: the team testifies before a Force Review Board about a prior hostage situation that escalated into an ICE raid and ended with Hondo shooting an unarmed civilian dead.
- "S.W.A.T. Exiles" debuts Sept. 25 on Starz with the remaining episodes airing weekly on Fridays, and the network has already greenlit a Season 2.
Why it matters: Starz greenlighting Season 2 before the Sept. 25 premiere signals the network is betting on Shemar Moore's proven draw to anchor a procedural franchise on a premium platform, while the season-long mole storyline gives the spinoff a stronger serialized hook than most cop shows manage in their first run.
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